IRS OUT OF CONTROL – and WHAT IS WRONG WITH CONGRESS THAT IT MADE THIS DEAL (I don’t know when) WITH OUR MONEY?

I don’t get this…why are WE paying IRS employees to do their union work so that we pay them more for less? Are they so wronged by their employer, us, that we need to do this? I am all for fair wages, but Federal employees have the most incredible job security — almost impossible to fire …am I wrong?

The Treasury Department has revealed to the House Ways and Means Committee that Internal Revenue Service employees spent over 500,000 hours on union activities last year. They estimated the cost to taxpayers at $23.5 million in salary and benefits.

Officials told Secrets that the exact hours IRS members of the National Treasury Employees Union dedicated to labor activities was 521,725 in fiscal 2013, which ran from October 2012 to September 2013. That was slightly less than the 573,319 hours in fiscal 2012, according to the IRS, but the spending was significantly above that year’s total of $16 million.

It was met with outrage from some in Congress who hit the agency for seeking more money, especially in light of the recent scandal involving the targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups.

“The IRS has wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and over a half a million employee hours for union activities. It is absurd… “ CLICK HERE

And the IRS statement?

“…In a statement, the IRS said: “Under the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, employees representing an exclusive representative (in this case NTEU), are entitled to use official time to represent an agency’s bargaining unit employees. Examples of representational activities would include negotiations, grievance meetings, formal discussions with management, third party appeals, etc.”